itskdog

I work in a primary school, and we're working with our existing network support provider on getting a quote for to set us up with M365 A3 (via NCE, moving from our existing OVS-ES) & Intune/AutoPilot next year, but still need one server onsite for PaperCut (due to the pesky 20 connections max on client editions of Windows), as RISO don't support anything else right now for print management/quotas, and we don't want to be guinea pigs for their DirectPrint.io integration they're working on that may or may not be ready by September. As only staff would be printing, we were hoping that the built-in CALs in A3 would be sufficient (everything I've found so far just says "Windows Server CAL Rights"), but we have been informed that the M365 CALs only apply to servers in Azure? "Windows server CAL's are only included when deploying IAAS servers (Azure hosted)." Does anyone have experience with this, as I can't find any evidence to confirm or deny this claim, and navigating the Microsoft Terms website is impossible to locate this. If someone can point me in the right direction to where this is documented either way, that would be great.

My ticket was #611511 from back in May if you want to look at it. I didn't know what to ask for, so I just asked what your plans were as far as how to keep the device in support after next October, assuming it might be something you guys would do to keep us secure, and got told that it would be up to us to locate the download and perform the upgrade ourselves as we're out of warranty, but not to use an ISO as it would cause a full reset and require a chargeable reinstall from you guys, and to use Windows Update instead (which as you can see above, is not possible). Ultimately, we don't want to pay anything if we can help it due to budget constraints, but if the backup recovery is chargeable as I've been informed it does, we'd need to know in advance the cost to make a decision, and I can't see a price list for services on your website or Zendesk. If it were running GA we could just apply an ESU licence key, but it makes sense as to why you're using LTSB/C due to the specs and purpose of the machine, so I'm not quibbling on that front.

Alternatively, there's always the native Windows Kiosk mode that utilises Edge, which uses Chromium on the backend so has the same compatibility as Chrome. Just boots up to a URL of your choosing, and runs everything in private browsing with a button to reset the session. The wizard just creates a second user with no password, so it automatically boots into that account, but you can always Ctrl+Alt+Del to sign out and switch to your admin account.

During lockdown when we had to give out laptops to PPG families, I had to quickly put something together with what we had, and found that there's a web filter in Sophos (as we're an LGfL school so get that included in our broadband subscription), so just used local group policy to lock down the machine, and Sophos Web Control to prevent access to any non-educational websites. If you can afford a proper school-designed web filter to install on the device (e.g. LGfL HomeProtect - perhaps your existing filter provider has a similar product), then that's going to be better though with all the reporting capabilities.

I'd seen that page before, but it only talked about LTSC to GA, not LTSC to a later LTSC, which is why I wasn't sure if that was possible.

Avoiding unnecessary cost (which a reinstall would be) would be preferable. We just want to keep security updates going until the EOL of the hardware when Microsoft stop supporting Windows 10 altogether. Budgets are tight so all POs are being scrutinised for necessity, and we're still working on bringing the quote for the Intune migration down while reducing how much we need to do, so that we have less worries about things going wrong in September. If we're not to use an ISO, per the support agent's instructions (as that would wipe the system), how else do you do that in-place-upgrade you mentioned? I've only ever manually done them on SAC/GA Windows 10, which uses the regular ISO from the Microsoft Website or VLSC, or is there a way through Windows Update on the machine that I hadn't spotted?

Not had any issues in my experience, but we haven't needed to update to that version for many staff as we only have 1 AP-Elements that was put in when they ran out of AP6s for warranty replacements. They have an MSI, so if you use that instead of the EXE, you should be able to use the regular /qn switch with that in msiexec - we have it preinstalled in our OS image, so I'm not familiar with that so much myself.

Hi all, We have an InVentry V4 machine that, despite receiving in 2019, was supplied with LTSB 2015, even though both 2016 and 2018 were out by then. 🤷♂️🤷♂️ I reached out to InVentry a while back to find out what would be needed to update to a newer version due to the end of security updates, and they basically said "you're on your own" as they can't do it remotely over TeamViewer. While we still have our OVS-ES subscription for another year (and therefore still have keys and downloads for LTSC versions) before we move to M365 A3 and ditching AD in the summer, we want to get the OS upgraded to LTSC 2018 (as 2021 ends support earlier as we don't seem to have the IoT variant available), but not being familiar with the LTSC versions, we're not sure the process to perform the upgrade. InVentry seemed to suggest it should be possible via Windows Update ("The update can be done via Windows Updates, or by download[sic.] the latest version (22H2) directly from Microsoft."), and sent us the link on their Zendesk for moving Windows 7 systems to Windows 10. Does anyone have any experience doing this on their site, or would it be recommended to engage our second-line support company rather that risking issues doing this ourselves and requiring the InVentry software to be reinstalled at cost (the consequence provided for using an ISO after my question)

I've contacted our reseller to find out what they think as well, and they said that the LX is more competing with the entry level touch screens and doesn't have a wall mount or an ActivInspire licence, the latter of which is probably the biggest cost difference now I think of it. Promethean are sneaky on their website as they say "1 Personal single user" (which is just the free version anyone can download without needing a board) and just have a tick on the AP9 page in the same row. We're going to go with the ActivPanel 9 in that case but given there's very little information out there publicly I'd recommend anyone with experience with the current generations to post a reply so there's more than just advertising showing up on the Google results.

Hi everyone, Long time Google-searcher, first time poster. We're in need of some new IWBs to replace a faulty AP6 from 2018 (of course we get a breakdown just after the warranty expired!) with OPS-G and some new classrooms that have been split in half. It seems promethean have 3 models right now, the AP9, AP9 Premium, and the APLX. Our current quotes are for the AP9 but with the notably lower price on the APLX (over £1,000 less!) I'm wondering if it's any good, given the functionality seems similar to that of the AP6, especially once you add on the OPS-A to get Android. We're a primary school, so we don't need tons of special features as most of the time the IWBs are connected to a PC with ActivInspire, but having access to Google Play on the OPS-G allows for teachers to install games/YouTube/Netflix for wet play and parties, and with the AP9 series just saying "ActivPanel OS", it's unclear if they're running Android and can have GMS enabled through the Panel Management or if they aren't as smart as the Elements series were, with just the whiteboard/timer/spinner apps that are on the OPS-A anyway. The only issue when researching is that there's no public information that isn't either selling the product or advertising from Promethean. Has anyone used the APLX in their school and have opinions to share?